In an unprecedented event off the coast of Massachusetts, USA, charter boat captain Damon Sacco and his client Walter Chapman caught an Atlantic blue marlin measuring over 11 feet (335 cm) in length and weighing 1,260 pounds (571.5 kg). This could be the largest blue marlin ever caught off the U.S. East Coast, reports infohub.kz.
Sacco said that when he first saw the fish, he thought it was a huge shark. But when it surfaced, he realized it was a marlin by its pointed bill. "I've never seen a fish like this in my life. When it rose from the depths, it looked like a glimmering blue spaceship," said the experienced captain.
The fight lasted about three hours, with Chapman on the rod. Sacco said his role was mostly to "drive the bus around and yell at people." The fish left a couple of holes in the boat's transom, which the captain calls "war marks."
Walt Golet, director of the University of Maine Pelagic Fisheries Lab, said catching such a large fish off New England is remarkable because the water is too cold for them most of the year, making the window to catch a big one very narrow. The fish's head was sent to the lab to determine its age, which Golet estimates at 25-30 years.
The fish was caught at Atlantis Canyon, an underwater canyon on the edge of the continental shelf about 100 miles (160 km) off Cape Cod. Golet believes it is unlikely that a blue marlin exceeding 1,200 pounds will be caught in the Atlantic in the next several years.
Chapman, a retiree and lifelong fisherman, said the meat was divided among about a dozen people, and he is currently looking up recipes. "I wasn't going to eat a 1,200-pound fish all by myself," he said. Some of it may be used for fish chowder.
When the boat returned to the docks, a crowd was waiting, and weighing the fish became a spectacle. Onlooker Katie Curran of Falmouth described it as spectacular. "People fish their entire lives and never come close to a catch like this. Hats off to Captain Damon Sacco and the crew on the catch of a lifetime," she said.